A few colored pencil sketches of dragonflies, based on the photos taken this summer.
Winter birds at feeder, drawn circa 1997 from memory without referencing real birds or photos thereof, so the details of the plumage and coloration aren't one hundred percent accurate.
From top to bottom ... Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Northern Cardinal, Evening Grosbeak.
More quick studies of birds ...
A male Small-eyed Sphinx newly emerged from its pupa provided an opportunity to do a study in color. As an artist explained to me many years ago, black, a total absence of color, seldom occurs in nature. The usage of black and white to delimit shadows and highlights sullies the purity of the colors; for this reason I've kept the black to a minimum in this drawing. The patterns on the wings of moths and butterflies are also fascinating, they are reminiscent of the fractal boundary of a Mandelbrot set.
